Certificate Authorities

A Certificate Authority (CA) is a trusted entity that stores, signs, and issues digital TLS/SSL certificates. Certificates verify the ownership of a public key by the named subject of the certificate.

Download a CSV of approved certificate authorities: Certificate Authorities (ver. 10-JAN-2026). See changes.txt.

See the best practices or learn more about the TLS/SSL Certificates and TLS/SSL Configurations risk vectors.

Identifying Certificate Authorities

Refer to the certificate issuer field (issuer_name) to identify the CA. The CA details are made up of the following attribute assertion values:

• C = 2-letter ISO Country Code
• ST = State/Province
• L = Locality
• O = Organization Name
• OU = Country or Region
• CN = Common Name

API Data

issuerName

The distinguished name of the certificate issuer, made up of attribute assertion values.

startsubjectName

The distinguished name of the owner of the first certificate in a certificate chain, made up of attribute assertion values.

subjectName

The distinguished name of the owner of the certificate, made up of attribute assertion values.